


waking with the best of routine caffeine team players

by thisstableground



Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: ALL THE GOOD STUFF, Complicated Emotions, M/M, Masturbation, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 07:26:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10612092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: Ruben’s got a crush on Jason and a crush on Science and it’s all sort of a mess.[Set 5-ish years pre-series, a few weeks after Jason first enlists Ruben to help create the Blackout drug to keep Ian away]





	

**Author's Note:**

> [a/n: it's me again still not knowing anything about DNH outside of Ruben, here have this nonsense. based on a prompt from duckbunny on tumblr, "Ruben in full-on pining mode over Jason, before it all goes to hell"]

  
“I don’t know about you guys but I’m either going to drop dead or start eating one of you if I don’t get a break and some food soon,” Connie announces, interlocking her fingers and stretching her arms above her head with a series of quiet cracking noises from various stiff limbs. “Lunch? Please?”  
  
A murmur of assent runs through most of the lab techs and they start shuffling around to make sure things can tide themselves over for the next half hour, but Ruben shakes his head apologetically.  
  
“I can’t, I’ve got a thing with -“  
  
“With Dr. Cole?” Connie finishes.  
  
“Yeah,” says Ruben. “How’d you know?”  
  
She laughs gently at him. “Who else would it be? You’ve been following him round like a stray puppy for weeks.”  
  
“I have _not_ ,” he says, affronted. “He asked for my help on a project. I am a professional chemist, supplying him with all of my valuable chemistry knowledge.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” she says. “And what kind of _chemistry_ are we talking, here? He doesn’t invite the rest of us out to play.”  
  
“Maybe Dr. Cole always asks for my help because I’m the only one here who does their job instead of wasting all day on wordplay and gossip,” says Ruben haughtily. Jason chooses this moment to lean his head round the door.

“Ruben, what’s been keeping you? We were supposed to meet five minutes ago.”  
  
“Oh!” says Ruben, jumping up from his stool and fumbling his blue gloves off. “Sorry, sure, we were just - I lost track of time, sorry, I’m such an idiot, haha - ”  
  
_Shut up, Ruben!_ he thinks wildly. Connie and the other techs are giggling behind him. He trips over his own feet on the way to the door.  
  
***  
  
Dr. Jason Cole is _the_ big man in the neurosurgery department, and Dr. Jason Cole is incredibly good-looking,and when he approached Ruben asking for assistance on a personal project - “ _I’ve heard you’re the best, and the best is exactly what I need, Dr. Marcado_ ” - Ruben had blushed and stuttered his agreement immediately, not sure if he was flustered more by the praise or by the proximity of a guy who both looks and smells like a living aftershave ad.

The dazzle of Jason’s medical skills and general everything still turns Ruben into something resembling his awkward 16 year old self with a better beard after three weeks, but it’s not quite enough to blind him to the fact that there is something seriously off about the whole situation.   
  
“I’m confused, I thought that I was supposed to be making you an insomnia cure.”  
  
“…Yeah?”  
  
“So why are you now telling me it needs to last for twelve freakin’ hours? I mean, if we were talking general benzo alternatives in terms of the anti-anxiety effects _maybe_ , but this is specifically for sleep. There’s no good reason to make it that potent. A lot of good reasons not to. The main one being, what you’re asking is basically impossible. You think I can just throw together a 12-hour coma that’ll still let you come into work the next day? Wasn’t that the whole problem to begin with, the hangover?”

Jason looks at him blankly for a long time. Ruben is steadfast in his concerns but he’s also very, very aware of how Jason’s eyes look like they can see into his soul or worse, the backroom of his brain where all the dirty videos are kept.

“Just…we’ll keep working on it,” Jason says. “Meet back at your office, same time tomorrow?”

And he’s gone in a swish of labcoat before Ruben even has a chance to answer.  
  
“…I mean, do I have a choice?” Ruben asks the empty room, eyeing the door Jason had just swept through dubiously.

  
***  
  
Ruben is out to dinner with a girl he met on OKCupid. Her name is Emma, and she has a cute half-smile and glasses with bright red frames. He felt good about this match when they agreed to meet up a few days ago, her online conversation quick and with _just_ enough flirty to be intriguing rather than intimidating. When he’d raised a hand to catch her attention as she walked into the restaurant, she’d done a little double-take and given him an approving once-over that made him feel warm, feel ready for the night ahead.  
  
And he can’t fucking focus on what she’s saying at all.  
  
“You’re a scientist, right?” Emma asks him.  
  
His mind’s back in the lab, working through Jason’s bizarre personal project. He’s cycling through all the sedative options he can think of in hopes of a starting point - benzos are pretty much out, the dependency risk is too great. They’ve been looking at adapted Z-drug options but-  
  
Wait, he’s on a date.  
  
“Sorry. What? Yeah, yeah, I’m a chemist at IMH. And you’re a…teacher?” he guesses, trying to remember what her profile said.  
  
There’s some can be eliminated straight away based on half-life. But even zopiclone somehow modulated to maximum strength is only about 7 hours and the after-effects are too intense for what Jason wants, especially at that strength.  
  
“I run a stationery supplies business,” she says.  
  
“Cool. That’s cool.”  
  
What Jason wants is a miracle. 12 hour knockout and back on his feet clearheaded enough to cut someone’s skull open the next day? But Ruben’s not going to stop just because something might be impossible - if he pulled this off, the _possibilities_ \- he just needs a proper plan, something more than randomly listing sedatives and hoping for divine inspiration.  
  
His hand twitches. There’s cogs moving in his brain and he needs to capture the process, it won’t take long. He interrupts Emma mid-sentence. She gives him a startled and slightly offended look.  
  
“Just - I’m so sorry, I know this is rude but I just need a minute to-“ Paper, goddammit, he forgot his notebook and it’s so much harder to get the right flow typing on a phone. He pulls a pen out of his pocket and starts scribbling on a napkin.  
  
“Those are cloth napkins, I don’t think-“  
  
“One second,” he says absently. There’s fireworks of potential going off in his skull and he writes till they quiet down.  
  
Emma is gone by the time he looks up.  
  
“Dammit, not _again_ ,” he sighs, and tucks the napkin of scrawled notes into his jacket before he waves the waiter over for the bill.  
  
***

It’s not that he gets off on science, it’s just he’s very good at it. There’s a physical elegance to being well-practiced in his work, a confidence flowing through his movements that he never figured out how to translate to the bedroom. If he did, he’d put a lot more effort into his dates because it feels _amazing_.

Jason’s readings are regular in terms of being consistent with themselves but weird as fuck in terms of how normal human bodies work. There’s a million reasons for the elevated cortisol, changes in blood sugar, all the other odd symptoms that showed up regardless of what sleeping tablet he is or isn’t taking. But in this room, Ruben’s instincts are perfectly tuned, and every tingle on the back of his neck is telling him there’s definitely something more than insomnia going on. It’s a constant itch in his brain that he doesn’t know what Jason is hiding. How is he supposed to do his job if he doesn’t have all the information?

So even though he doesn’t strictly, necessarily get off on science, and he’s actually pretty sure Jason’s straight, the combination of three factors - a distraction from the frustrating void of things he hasn’t been told, the thrill of the work, Jason having a really good face - means that Ruben’s mind wanders a little too often towards wishful thinking about Jason just wanting an excuse to have Ruben nearby, gently holding his face still to attach electrodes to his temples, leaning in close with a torchlight to check pupil reactions.

***

Ruben is having lunch with a guy he met through an LGBT+ dating site, and it’s going well. His name is Simon and he’s got steely grey-blue eyes and short, messy light hair. Simon is a lawyer, and lunch is the only time both of them could find free to meet up, and they’ve spent the past half an hour trading stories about dates that have been ruined by the demands of their careers.   
  
“-so of course, she’d left by the time I started paying attention again.” Ruben heaves an exaggerated sigh, but Simon stops laughing abruptly.  
  
“…She?” he asks.  
  
Aw, fuck. Ruben knows that tone.  
  
“Yep,” he says, with forced casualness.  
  
“I…didn’t realise you were, uh, not gay.”

“Yeah. You might even say I’m bisexual.” Ruben toys with his fork. “That’s not a problem, is it?”

“No, no, of course not,” Simon says hurriedly, taking an unnecessarily long sip of coffee. Ruben waits. “I just… sorry, but it’s a dick move that you didn’t mention it on your profile. It’s only fair to warn people so they don’t waste their time. I’m not into that lifestyle.”  
  
There it is.  
  
“What lifestyle? Warn them about _what_?” Ruben’s trying to keep his temper but he’s heard this and more too many times to be patient. Greedy, indecisive, attention-seeking. He’s tired of it.“I’m taking you to lunch, not an orgy - shit, really, _now_?”  
  
His phone is ringing. Caller ID is - oh, no surprises there. “I have to take this. Hi, Jason.”  
  
“Ruben, I need you to come to the hospital.”  
  
“Of course you do. I’ll be there in five.”  
  
“Who’s Jason _?_ ” Simon asks.  
  
“Just the guy who runs our mandatory monthly multigendered fuckfest,” says Ruben bitterly. “Part of the bisexual _lifestyle_ , you know how it is. It was work, I have to leave, let’s not do this again sometime.”  
  
He throws a couple of folded bills from his wallet on the table to cover his meal and tries to ignore the sting of disappointment as he leaves. He shouldn’t have got his hopes up.  
  
***  
  
Jason is pacing Ruben’s office already by the time he gets back to IMH, but pauses whatever he was going to say to take in Ruben, dressed in a nice shirt and slacks and with his tie on straight for once.  
  
“Wait, were you out with a girl or something?” Jason asks, and Ruben pretends he can hear an undercurrent of jealousy.  
  
“Or something,” says Ruben.  
  
“I need to tell you something,” Jason says, ignoring Ruben’s comment completely. “About me. About why I’ve really been asking for your help.”

Ruben shouldn’t get his hopes up, and is infuriated to realise that he has done so anyway.  
  
What Jason tells him is so mind-shatteringly far from what he expects to hear that he forgets to even be disappointed until much, much later. Even then, it’s tempered by a fluttering, excitable little part of his brain that says “he trusted you with this. He _trusts_ you.”

***  
  
It’s not that he gets off on science, but he does get a serious buzz from the process, and the problem is that he gets a very similar kick from looking at guys like Jason, and the two have started to cross over in ways that make Ruben deeply uncomfortable with himself.

He’s in the lab alone so many nights, staring at MRI copies and blood cultures and paper upon paper of research and results. Keeps winding through cross-sections of mental alleyways that turn into dead ends with a constant anticipation that he can never satisfy, because he doesn’t know what the hell is happening. There’s joy in discovering a definite _no_ to a point, a checkmark off the list whenever he finds out what’s _not_ wrong in Jason’s head. And he’s never worked a project like this before - nobody’s ever worked something like this before. His feet marking untouched ground like Armstrong making the first bootprint on the surface of the moon, _God_ it makes him giddy with excitement. 

Still, he longs to make some kind of fucking progress, instead of seeking and seeking and never completing. He’s looking through endless lists of unexplainable test results, he’s surrounded by data that shouldn’t exist, all his to figure out and he can’t get there. It makes his brain and heart race in a way he always craves but without any breakthroughs its like running a marathon that won’t ever end, like standing near Jason and never quite touching, or touching and never quite having. Maybe he _is_ greedy: he wants more, more answers, more of the rush, more sensation, _more_ \- fuck, _fuck_ , he doesn't know when he got hard but suddenly he’s rocking into the edge of his desk and gasping, desperately turned on without really understanding how it happened.  
  
It’s really not the most effective technique, the pressure’s all wrong, his jeans are in the way. It would be easy to take them off, go lock himself in the single-stall bathroom and do this properly, but he doesn’t. Instead, he rubs one hand over himself outside his jeans while the other clutches at the desk. It’s not enough: an endless, building frustration reaching for a crest that he’s starting to think he’ll never find. Story of his life. He moves faster, pushing into his hand with a moan, he can't _get_ there -

Until the image of Jason bending him over the desk like this bursts to life in Ruben’s mind full cinema-style sound and colour, sending him immediately over the edge. He grinds his hand down hard against his dick and collapses forward with a choked-off whimper, hips twitching through the aftershocks.  
  
He stays with his head against the cool surface of the table, panting, still holding himself. There’s a damp patch slowly spreading on the front of his jeans, there’s a pile of papers that he knocked to the floor that needs picking up, there’s a confusing feeling rattling all around like he can’t tell if that was incredibly hot or if he hates himself a bit now.  
  
“Fuck,” he says, with great feeling, and bangs his forehead against the table just once.

***  
  
There will always be people for whom Ruben will never be enough, he learnt this young and kept relearning it. Not gay enough, not straight enough, not Latino enough, not American enough, not white enough. Constantly strung up between distant and discrete points and never belonging fully to any one thing.

He tries so hard not to mind. He can love in more than one way, belong to more than one culture, he won’t waste his life following what can never be reached. Ruben’s personal chase is towards the freefall bloodrush sensation that other people find by jumping out of planes or climbing mountains, except Ruben finds his adrenaline shock in knowing, in solving.

He worked so hard for this. College built up a sleep debt worse than the student loan repayments, because Ruben’s on a decent wage but he’s not had a chance to earn any rest back. Always tells himself, it’s just until after this week, after this project, after this year. There’s always more to do.

His teachers at school had called him brilliant and his lecturers had called him exceptional, and every bit of praise was another piece of kindling around the pyre Ruben would have to burn himself on if he fucked this up because this is all he has. Ruben in his constant state of limbo grew up surrounded by a million sort-of acquaintances he never quite called friends, a million almost-dates that never quite materialised. It’s not clear to him whether he wasn’t close to people because he spent so much time studying, or if he focused on his studies because he didn't know how to be close to people but either way, he knows where his real worth lies and its always, always in the lab. Ruben will never be enough for some people outside of it, but this is where he shines, this is where he is unmatched, this is where he’s everything he can be.

Jason comes in one day, agitated with dark rings around his eyes and holding the empty bottle of knockout drug. He puts it down heavily on Ruben’s desk, because he can never just walk into a room and say ‘hi’ like a normal person. “It’s not working how it should be. I can tell it’s not strong enough, I can feel it. And I still feel like shit the day after, too.”  
  
He looks at Ruben expectantly like he might’ve been hiding a more effective drug in the pockets of his labcoat this whole time. Ruben briefly raises his eyes to the ceiling, praying to nobody in particular for the patience to deal with Jason’s unique brand of stubborn melodrama.  
  
“I already told you, this is a temporary fix. I’m working on something better but it’s gonna take time to figure out. I’m doing everything I can.”  
  
“Do more,” Jason says.  
  
***  
Reality rewrites itself around his anxieties while he sleeps.  
  
_“I’m doing everything I can,” says Ruben._  
  
_“Do more,” Jason says. Was he always standing this close? Ruben is crowded back against the wall, pinned into a corner by Jason’s arms braced on either side of him. “If you can’t do this, I’ll find someone better.”_  
  
_“You can’t do that,” Ruben pleads. “I’m the best at this, I can be trusted.”_  
  
_“There’s a whole floor of chemists who can do what you do, Ruben. Do you think it makes you special that I happened to pick you first? I could walk out there and replace you right now.”_  
  
_“No, please! You can't go, you need me.”_  
  
_“No, I just need your thoughts,” says Jason. Snarls it, like how Ruben imagines it to sound when the impossible other life that lives inside Jason’s body breaks free. He pushes his fingers through Ruben’s hair, presses a little too hard like he’s mapping out his skull. “I could take your brain apart, find what I want on my own. I’m good at getting inside people’s heads.”_  
  
_“You don’t need to tell **me** that,” says Ruben, and then there’s_ a loud beeping and everything gets confusing for a second, till he wakes up disoriented and ridiculously tangled in his sheets. The movement as he fumbles to turn off his alarm brings to his attention the fact that he is extremely, achingly hard.  
  
Ruben drags a hand through his hair like Jason had done in his dream, still only half-awake. He imagines being the one who sits in a chair and lets Jason dismantle him for science instead of vice-versa. Ruben as a subject for Jason to study, as something worth learning inside and out. Jason’s clever, steady neurosurgeon hands deconstructing him to see how it all works, turning him into pages of data and information, turning him into a discovery.  
  
_I could take your brain apart._ A happy little shudder runs involuntarily all through Ruben’s lower body.

“You’re so _fucked up_ ,” he tells his dick, moving his hand from his hair to shove it down his pajama pants instead.

***

The shine of Jason’s attention tarnishes a little over time in an endless cycle of demands and research. Jason wants more: he comes and whispers urgent instructions to Ruben to work harder, do better almost daily. Ruben wants more: he pushes himself to his mental limits until his whole body is sparkling with overwrought thoughts and frustration and then he goes to the bathroom and jerks off. It gets less hot and more troubling each time.   
  
He’d felt so special at first, being the one who Jason picked. Now he’s not sure. The problem with setting high standards is that when you fuck up, you burn like Icarus. Ruben's been expecting to go down in flames since high school, and he feels like everything he does is delaying the inevitable, is just taking him higher so that the fall will hurt even more.  He can’t let Jason down and he can’t let this project go and he doesn’t know if he’s doing it for Jason or science or for himself any more. He hasn’t been on a date since Simon, hasn’t had the time.

“I need you,” Jason says and Ruben drops dates, skips sleep, breaks rules. He doesn't know if he’s helping Jason because he likes him, or if he likes Jason because Jason needs his help. He doesn’t know if Jason likes him, even as a friend.

Ruben knows Jason’s deepest secret, Jason doesn’t even know Ruben’s sexuality. Ruben’s plunged needles into Jason’s bare arms a thousand times over and over. Ruben takes blood and information from Jason daily. Ruben should feel powerful, dangerous, he should feel like he has the upper hand.  
  
He takes Jason’s stats and runs tests and later when he's alone he comes to thoughts of the mystery in Jason’s mind and the phantom feeling of Jason’s hands giving him what he needs.  
  
He shouldn’t ever have started this. It’s unsustainable. It’s unethical. It's messing up his research. There's a reason it's not considered acceptable to get involved with participants.  
  
_Make a decision, Ruben,_ he tells himself. _You can have the science, or you can have the dirty little fantasies but you can’t have both, not any more._

There’s never been a question of which he’d choose, really. He’s worked so hard to get where he is.  
  
“I need you,” Jason says, and its not quite the same as being wanted, not the same as being liked. Ruben should feel powerful, not like a lab rat encaged in his glass-walled office, waiting to be useful, waiting to tread the same maze over and over in the hopes of a positive response that never quite comes.

“Ruben, I need you for a second,” says Jason in his doorway, and Ruben comes running.  
  
***

 

 _Epilogue, 5 years later:_  
  
Ian pulls the length of yellow tubing tight around Ruben’s arms and he’s too dizzy with fear to fight back. Not that he’s had much luck with that so far today anyway. Ian is bigger than him, Ian is more ruthless than him. Ruben is fucked.

“So, are you gonna kill me?” he asks, more to stall than because he wants to know the answer. God, a random transition would be so welcome right now.

“Haven’t decided,” says Ian brightly, finishing his restraints. Ruben is _fucked_.

Ruben pulls at them. Yeah, he’s not going anywhere. “i’ll happily weigh in if you need a tiebreaker vote.”  
  
Ian laughs. “You’re fun. I almost hope you don’t bleed out.”  
  
“Bleed out? What- mmmf!”

There’s a choking dryness of fabric in his mouth all of a sudden, Ian’s hand on his chest holding him still. He kicks out uselessly, terror welling inside him and nowhere for it to burst out of, not when he’s gagged like this. He makes muffled noises and shies away from Ian’s touch as best he can.  


“Keep still, this wont hurt a bit,” says Ian in a parody of a calming, doctorly voice. “See, don’t you just hate it when people lie to you too? I meant it about keeping still, though, it’ll only make this worse for you. I've never given anyone dialysis before, you know.”  
  
Ruben stops squirming and stares Ian down with more boldness than he feels, prays for last minute luck to be on his side.  
  
_Come on Jason please come back you need to come back right now -_

There’s nothing but Ian behind those eyes. Ruben refuses to look away first. He can at least lose with dignity.   
  
Ian nods, like he’s passed a test.  
  
_Jason come back I need you -_  
  
“I like you, Ruben,” Ian says, sounding painfully sincere about it, and he slams the needle down into Ruben’s arm.

**Author's Note:**

> [a/n: sorry if it's a little bit messy i am chronically in need of a nap and will never have one, probably.
> 
> come to my tumblr [thisstableground](https://thisstableground.tumblr.com/)if you like gifs and fanart and endless screaming emotions about ruben]


End file.
